The Approval Loop

Cowork's contract has three parts. First: Claude works autonomously on the mechanical parts — reading, drafting, formatting, cross-checking — without nagging you. Second: it pauses and notifies you when it hits a decision that's genuinely yours — a judgment call, an ambiguity, anything that changes what the deliverable means. Third: nothing final ships until you've reviewed and approved it. You can also redirect mid-task: reply to the notification, and Claude adjusts course without starting over.

This matters more for knowledge work than it ever did for code. Code has tests; a board memo doesn't. Your review is the test suite. So build the habit from day one: read what came back before you forward it, the way you'd skim a junior colleague's first draft. The point of Cowork isn't to remove your judgment — it's to spend your judgment only where it's needed.

A practical calibration ladder: start with tasks where a bad result costs nothing (organizing files, drafting summaries you'll rewrite). Move up to tasks where errors are visible but cheap (internal docs, first-draft decks). Only then hand over externally visible work (client emails, published numbers) — and keep reviewing those indefinitely. Trust is earned per task type, not granted globally.